


take your pick, set your stage

by minorseventh



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music, Alternate Universe - Orchestra, Canon Compliant, Kubo Orchestra, M/M, symphony au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11014959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minorseventh/pseuds/minorseventh
Summary: The days go on, not nearly enough hours between orchestra rehearsals to work things out, and Yuuri hears doors open and slam as musicians come and go, watches as the hourglass on the mantelpiece sees its sand drain away.And then it’s judgment day.(a cut scene from A Liszt of Everything I Love About You.)





	take your pick, set your stage

It’s not every day you end up with Victor fuckin’ Nikiforov as your own private instructor.

You see, the selection process all begins with two overexcited candidates and a very, very extra coach.

Even from the beginning, Victor seems to think it all quite trivial, as if the imminent futures of two budding violinists are not on the line, and makes a show out of weighing his options.

Yuri, irritably, suggests that Victor just shut up and think with some common sense already, because hello, promises are promises.

Yuuri says nothing, choosing instead to look at his shoes, waiting with bated breath.

After a moment, Victor immediately brightens and claps. “I’ve made my decision,” he says. (Both are hanging on his every word.) “I’ll coach you both using the piece I originally intended to play myself for the solo audition!”

Both students voice their objections, thinking themselves way too different in that respect, even if it were for a playoff to determine the worthier contender between them. Victor cuts their protests off. “You see, this was going to be a G minor kind of season for me, and I was just torn between these two absolutely captivating sonatas… both rather well-known… you can hear the same kind of yearning, expressed through utterly different styles.”

He looks torn for a second, but the brightness quickly returns to his eyes. “So, yes. A violin duel! Between Debussy and Tartini,” Victor concludes.

He picks up his Stradivarius, puts it to his shoulder.

“No objections? Good. This first one, by Debussy… his only violin sonata…”

Yuri looks like he’s about to say something, but it’s already too late.

Victor closes his eyes and launches into a solemn progression, modulates to an upper key, and executes long lines of dissonance aching to be resolved, lapses into nimbly light arpeggios. It’s the kind of music that makes you listen with bated breath as the register begins to soar, the kind that sounds almost fragile enough to shatter.

Yuuri pictures an elfin marionette dancing in a cathedral hall. The quality is ethereal… as if underwater, even. He’s heard of the sonata, of course—during his Debussy phase, Celestino had told him it required a very mature, earnest sound that he could not produce at the time. Maybe he was ready for this kind of soul-searching adventure now.

The third movement is made up of elegant trills and animated _staccato_ sequences, before taking off in a final unforeseen Picardy third. Victor finishes with his signature flourish, and smiles down on his two pupils.

Nobody claps, even though Yuuri is dying to. His counterpart gives an impatient wave, scowling. Victor smiles knowingly, as if he knows a secret the other two don’t.

“This second one is the story of a dream… threaded through with passion and rapture simply unable to be captured in words,” Victor says—again, he brings the violin up with well-practiced fluidity—

“Tartini’s infamous _Devil’s Trill Sonata_.”

Yuri breaks into a wicked smile.

The first movement fashions a poignant tune out of fluid double stops; the technically impossible second movement features lines upon lines of brilliant passagework; the third returns to an anguished cry of sorrow; the fourth is as difficult as it is varied in sound and style, braving all tempi and keys. Victor executes the piece flawlessly, fabulously, fingers nimbly dancing through grace notes and appassionato rebirths. His vibrato is the sound of a heart breaking, and Yuuri reckons his own heart _is_ about to crack, before he is swept up in a turbulent improv cadenza. He’s in love with the passion, but he’s intimidated by its scope. He’d rather stick with the detachedness of the Debussy.

“So! This is how I’m going to assign it,” Victor declares. “Yurio! You’re playing the Debussy. Which leaves the Tartini with Yuuri.”

Yuuri visibly blanches. Him? Play decadent music straight from hell, with such prowess and power that it seduces the listener? That’s… that’s not in his repertoire! That’s not his style!

Yuri Plisetsky looks just as shocked. “There– I– there’s no way–”

“You have to do the opposite of what people expect, after all,” Victor points out, cheekily, and tells them to be ready for the showdown in a couple days. He gives a final, inauspicious warning to play more than what is purely written in the music.

Both scramble out the room to start training their fingers to the music, desperately practicing day in and day out.

Yuuri goes over every double stops until both chord notes are of even tone, makes sure each trill is equal and executed without hesitation, reworks the same measures over and over and over again. After a few hours, his hand starts cramping up, and Leo kindly offers him a heat wrap for a bit before it’s all back to square one, back to the hurriedly-printed IMSLP sheet music, now already marked up with pencil smudges and clarification notes.

He has no problem with the technique, of course, but his playing doesn’t sound nearly self-indulgent as the kind of rich piece of devil’s food cake he’d like it to be; rather, his playing is like a stale chocolate muffin. But he’ll have to prove himself worthy if Victor is to choose him as his pupil, and that reward is tantalizing beyond belief.

The day goes on, not nearly enough hours between orchestra rehearsals to work things out, and Yuuri hears doors open and slam as musicians come and go, and the hourglass on the mantelpiece sees its sand drain away.

And then it’s judgment day.

Yuuri finds himself in an empty ballroom, on an elevated maple stage. Beneath the façade of his carefully ironed shirt, he can feel his heart racing. He shoots a couple of daring looks to Yuri Plisetsky, who is methodically applying rosin to his bow.

Victor, lounging, looks effortless as always, one arm draped across the back of his chair. He calls the younger violinist over to play first.

“Announce your piece,” Victor says.

**Author's Note:**

> i do think this part is better as a standalone... I tried for the longest time to make it work but it didn't fit into the rest of the story... too rushed. not proud of it but anyways.
> 
> +find the Kubo Orchestra AU ft. the rest of the gang at ♥ [A Liszt of Everything I Love About You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9533810/chapters/21557837)  
> +and enjoy two lovely lovely violin sonatas (hopefully you can see how my extensive violin music research is agape and eros inspired):  
>  [Debussy Violin Sonata](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_iNG9XcDCo)  
> [Devil's Trill Sonata](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rxl5KsPjs)  
> 


End file.
